


A New Beginning

by Damiens_Dream_Daddy



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Abuse, Canon Trans Character, Gen, Misgendering, Relationship(s), Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Trans Male Character, Violence, back story, deadnaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 15:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12301938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damiens_Dream_Daddy/pseuds/Damiens_Dream_Daddy
Summary: Before moving to Maple Bay, Damien Bloodmarch reflects on the struggles of his life and the life he’s built with his son. The first in a series of backstories for the Dream Daddy character Damien Bloodmarch. TW: Deadnaming and Misgendering





	A New Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I've listed this as violent because as far as I'm concerned, dead-naming and misgendering is violence and can be extremely triggering for some. Just in case there was any confusion.

 

_“Nearly there, Miss Reed. You’re doing great.”_

_Sinead took a deep breath, before hissing at the midwife through her teeth one last time._

_“I… Told you… Not… to… Call me that!”_

_She gasped out one last time, weirdly proud of herself for managing to stay reasonably calm, or at least calmer than the weird woman next door who was screaming her head off. She felt herself collapse backwards on the bed, her eyes closed and her breath heavy. She heard nothing for a few moments, before the wail of a baby filled the room. Slowly she opened her eyes to watch the midwife wrap up her new baby, giving a gentle smile as they handed the child to her._

_“It’s a boy!”_

_Sinead rolled her eyes wearily. She hated that the first thing that she had to be told about her child was what genitals they had, like it even mattered! Nevertheless, when they placed her new son in her arms for the first time, she cradled him gently, leaning in to kiss the top of his head._

_“Hello my Darling,” She whispered to him gently, as his crying stopped._

_“Do we have a name?” The midwife asked, beaming at the new mother._

_Sinead thought for a moment, looking into her child’s eyes as they opened for the first time, looking at his parent._

_“Lucien,” She said softly._

_Just then the door burst open, despite the nurse guarding it, and a plump flustered woman burst in, hurrying to the bed, followed by a tall, grinning man._

_“Well? Are they alright?” The woman asked the midwife, not bothering to ask her own child._

_“Both mother and son are fine,” The Midwife replied, also ignoring the person who had actually given birth._

_“Son? He’s a boy? My Grandson!” She squealed and hurried in to ruin the intimate moment. “Is he alright? What’s his name? How much does he weight? Are you supporting his head? Are you being careful? Are you listening to me, Sinead?”_

_Sinead wasn’t listening. She wasn’t aware of anything else but her new baby. She didn’t look up until after she heard the quiet click of a camera._

_*_

Damien stared at the picture, the same gentle smile on his face now. He’d thrown away all of the pictures taken of his past life, all except this one. He found it hard to believe nowadays that Lucien had once been that small.

Life for them hadn’t been easy after that moment. Lack of funds had forced them to move in with Damien’s parents and despite his mother insisting that he was doing everything wrong, she refused to help take care of Lucien, saying that Damien had to live with his own mistakes. But Damien stayed strong and returned to finish his computer science degree at the local community college, assisted by its complimentary nursery program. After he graduated, Damien started his entry level software programmer job, working as hard as he could and doing all the overtime he had time for in order to do the best by his son. About once a week a friend of his agreed to babysit, so Damien could go to flee markets and antique stores to continue his collection of Victorian memorabilia and taxidermy animals, but he would only stay away from his little darling for a few hours and was greeted with a flying hug at every return.

But he had still felt the darkness inside him. The black mass that was forever present over his head. He couldn’t explain it at the time. He had no idea why he felt so wrong in his own skin. How every time someone called him “Miss Reed” or “young Lady” it rubbed him the wrong way. He figured it was just something everybody felt, since no-one was really satisfied with their life and every woman had been cheated or disrespected by men at some point in their lives.

That was until Lucien started school. Damien tried to be friends with some of the other parents, but they often found his gothic appearance rather intimidating. But he still managed to chat to a few mothers, who gave tips and secrets on how to be a successful parent. That was when he realised.

Not every woman hates being a woman. He hated being called a woman because he wasn’t a woman.

Damien began to read up on gender dysphoria and it felt like he was reading up on his own mind. He remembered at the hospital when he tried to breastfeed Lucien, but how the sight and feel of it made him cringe and weep. His mother had repeatedly nagged him for bottle-feeding, even after the paediatrician assured them that it was safe, telling him that he wasn’t putting Lucien’s health and safety first, but Damien just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Despite the revelation, Damien didn’t come out straight away. For Lucien’s sake, he kept quiet. He couldn’t bear the thought of putting his son through something so drastic and changing. He decided that he’d come this far, he could carry on as Sinead.

And he had tried, he really did.

He finally moved Lucien and himself out of his parent house and into their own apartment. It was small and they had, had to share a bedroom, but they were both happier to be together, despite the same phone call every other day from his mother, telling him that he was “trying to take her only grandson away from her.”

But every day the dysphoria became stronger and stronger. He had dreams every night where he saw himself as the man he was, the picture of a Victorian gentleman. Sometimes in the middle of the night he would start crying and feel the tiny body of Lucien slip into bed next to him, cuddling him close.

_For him,_ He would tell himself every morning he woke up and every time he went to bed.  _Do it for him._

Damien loved Lucien more than anything, more than life itself. But the crippling depression began to conflict with his feelings. Wouldn’t Lucien be better off with no parents than a messed-up failure as a parent? Was he really worth anything if he couldn’t be the mother that Lucien deserved? Everyday became more of a struggle until he couldn’t even take his clothes off to shower. He could see other people wrinkle their noses as he walked past, even though he sprayed himself with perfume every morning. His hair became dry and he lost weight rapidly.

Everyone was asking him what the matter was. His friends, Lucien’s teachers and especially his father. Every time they went on one of their traditional antiquing trips, he would ask Damien if he was struggling with Lucien, if it was money or work and that he’d always be able to help. Damien believed his father, but he still couldn’t bring himself to talk to him. How could he make someone else understand if he couldn’t understand himself?

Eventually it became too much. One night, when Lucien was at his parents, he drained half a bottle of gin and wrote a long letter to his son before swallowing a whole bottle of ibuprofen. He laid still on his bed, waiting for the darkness, his last thoughts about his darling boy and how he wished him all the happiness in the world…

…When he next awoke, he was in hospital, his head pounding and his whole-body sore.

Worried about him, his father had popped over to make sure he was alright and called an ambulance. He was the first to enter Damien’s room, telling him that he was so glad he found him and asking him how he could do such a thing. He also explained that he hadn’t read his letter to Lucien and returned it to him, the purple seal still in place. He told his child that he would get him help and that everything would be alright.

His mother was less understanding.

She ranted at him, calling him selfish and ungrateful, asking how he could do that to her and to Lucien. Without a thought for Lucien or Damien’s career she had him committed to a mental hospital, telling him that she intended to take sole custody of Lucien. Luckily, his father stepped in and insisted that while they would take care of Lucien, it was probably best that Damien spent some time working out his issues with a professional. Damien agreed.

The hospital hadn’t been all that bad. It was quiet and spacious; the food was alright and his laundry was done for him. They also let him wear his own clothes, although corsets were confiscated for obvious reasons.

He also made his first real friend since he’d left college.

Mary had committed herself voluntarily after her post-partum depression had become too much to bear. She had gotten into her car and driven off in the middle of the night, with the intention of never returning to her husband and children. She opened up to Damien about how her husband didn’t appreciate her and how her new twins were more than she could handle. Damien listened intently, glad to finally be there for someone who needed a friendly ear more than he did. When she asked Damien, what brought him inside, he was reluctant to open up to her.

It took a while for his therapist to wheedle anything out of him, but after a few sessions Damien confessed all. The strength of his dysphoria, how he’d always fought the uncontrollable feeling of being male, but how he’d always tried to do what was best for Lucien. The therapist was incredibly understanding and Damien felt like a weight had been lifted from him. He had secretly hoped that with therapy or maybe even medication, he’d be able to work through his dysphoria and carry on as Sinead. But after the therapist confirmed that the best way to treat gender dysphoria was to transition, Damien knew he had no other option but to try.

The first person who he came out to was Mary, who laughed and told him that she had known he was a man when she looked into his eyes. She checked herself out a few days later, but gave Damien her address. While the hospital was near her parents’ home in the mid-west, she would be returning to her community and her seemingly idyllic life with her youth pastor husband, but that she’d need Damien to keep in touch in order to keep her sane. Damien agreed without hesitation, hugging Mary close, thanking her repeatedly for her companionship. Mary just smiled her half smile, got back into her car and drove back the way she’d came.  

Next came the hard part.

He called his parents into the hospital, sat them down and explained to them that he was really their son and that he was going to be living the rest of his life as a man.

The results had been explosive. His mother had wept and pleaded, beginning him not to take her “little Sinead away from her.”

“Why are you doing this to us?” She said through sobs.

“This has nothing to do with you,” Damien said calmly. “This is about who I am.” He placed his head in his hands, feeling like he was reciting from the coming out handbook. His father opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off.

“What about Lucien? You can’t do this to him, he’ll be too confused, he’ll never understand!”

As it was, Lucien understood perfectly.

“So… You’re my Dad now?” He had asked, smiling up at him as he laid down across the bed, his head nestled in his father’s lap, in a way he had not been since he was a little boy.

“If you like,” Damien replied. “If you’re comfortable calling me Dad, I’d like it if you would.”

“Of course, I will!” Lucien hugged him tight. “Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad!” Damien chuckled, petting his hair. “What will everyone else call you?”

“I haven’t decided yet, son,” Damien said, his eyes brimming with tears of joy.

“Can I choose?”

“Well, no. That’s- “

“But you got to name me!”

Damien couldn’t deny he had a point.

“Alright. What do you suggest?”

Lucien thought for a moment.  
 

“Thomas?”

Damien winced.

“I think not.”

“Ben?”

“No.”

“How about Damien?”

“Damien?”

“Uh-huh! Like from  _The Omen!_ ”

“… Who let you watch  _The Omen?”_

Lucien blushed, but didn’t see any point in lying, especially when his Dad was being so honest with him. “I saw it online one time when you were working in the other room… I turned it down so you couldn’t hear.”

“How considerate of you,” Damien said, shaking his head. He whispered the name to himself a few times. “Alright. I’ll be Damien.”

“It suits you!” Lucien said excitedly, hugging his father again. “Does this mean you’ll be coming home now?”

“We’ll see,” He had promised, not wanting to get his hopes up.

But despite his mother’s protests that her ‘daughter’ was delusional, the physiatrist released Damien after only a two week stay. He had informed his work of his situation and received a fairly positive response. His physiatrist had notified his doctor and he would begin the waiting for treatment. He took a trip to the courthouse and legally changed his name along with all his documentation. Everything was done. He was Damien now.

Despite his mother’s continued protests and rejection, Damien’s father turned up at his home the day after his release, telling him that although he did not truly understand the situation, he wanted Damien to be happy and acknowledged that he had not been happy the last few years. He told Damien that he would do his best to adjust and encourage his mother to do so to. Damien found himself in tears, clinging to his beloved Father, thanking him over and over. He simply replied that there was no need to thank him. That he had responded how any loving father would have.

Damien would have given anything for that to be the end of it, for Lucien and himself to live a happy life and for no other problems would interfere. But life is rarely that simple.

Lucien started coming home from school with bruises and black eyes. Damien begged him to tell him what was wrong and tell him what had happened, but Lucien refused to tell a word. Damien feared the worst, worrying that his son was being beaten up because of him. That was until he received a letter from the school, informing him that Lucien had started the fights. Apparently, he had been defending his father, beating other kids who had misgendered or made snide comments about his Dad. Despite his concern, Damien couldn’t help but feel touched.

That night he sat Lucien down at the table and tried to talk to him about the situation, but Lucien refused to regret his actions.

“The things they say about you, Dad…” He mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

“Why don’t you tell the teachers about it?”

“Because they never do anything! They… They say the same things sometimes.”

Damien sighed. He could see that there was no easy solution to this problem. Unsure what else he could do, he pulled Lucien from the school, feeling that it would look better if he moved schools now rather than wait for him to be expelled.

He explained the situation to his father, who listened intensively, telling him that sometimes children could be cruel and adults small minded. They agreed not to tell Damien’s mother.

After a year of living as Damien, he started taking testosterone. Every morning Damien looked in the mirror, unable to see the subtle changes in his body and voice. But others did. Lucien giggled when his voice began to break and the two bonded over the troubles of male puberty. Every time he saw his mother however, she would burst into tears. His voice would be slightly deeper each time, his face and body slightly different. She would ask again why he was doing this to her and what she had done to deserve this. She told Damien that he was selfish and refused to use male pronouns.

Damien couldn’t deny that things became different at work. Not at his main office, but when he went out of town to conferences and when he did work for outside companies. People were more trusting of him, like they believed that he knew how to do his job and more open to his suggestions. He couldn’t help but feel guilty about it, feeling disloyal to his female co-workers. He mentioned this to his boss, who waved it off, calling it a coincidence. Damien didn’t have the courage to press the matter any further.

Then the real tragedy struck.

Damien’s beloved Father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The notice was short and the doctors were honest with him. He was not going to recover. Rather than spend the next few years going through chemo and lifechanging, painful and exhausting treatments that were very unlikely to save him, he decided to refuse treatment and live the last few months of his life in relative peace, spending time with those he loved.

Damien was no stranger to death, having loss all four grandparents during childhood, but his Father was a great influence on his life. He’d always been there for him and been the one who had started his interest in collecting taxidermy animals and supported his interest in Victorian fashion and culture. And he had been the peacekeeper between him and his mother. His father spent a lot of time with them in the last few months, taking them on mini breaks and to museums. Damien and his mother agreed on mutual respect for the time, speaking only kind words to one another. It hurt Damien’s heart to think that it would take his father’s death for his mother to accept him for who he was. The night his father finally passed away, Damien had held his mother close, holding her for hours as they wept into each other, feeling a closeness they had not felt since before Lucien was born. In the midst of the pain of mourning for his father, Damien felt a strange warmth in his heart.

The feeling however was short lived.

Two days before his father’s funeral, a black dress was delivered to Damien’s house. It was knee length, A-line, with long black sleeves; the sort of dress worn by a sensible, conservative woman in mourning. Attached to the dress was a note:

_If you have any respect for your family, you’ll wear this ~ Mother._

Damien was furious. He couldn’t believe that his mother would try and use his grief for his father to try and get her daughter back. That she would be that manipulative and cruel. He screamed into the dress, weeping into the soft fabric, almost ripping it with frustration, until Lucien knocked insistently on the bathroom door, asking if he was alright.

On the morning of the funeral it was clear that Damien couldn’t wear the dress. He ironed it and hung it up, staring at it for a long time. He even stripped down and stood in front of it as if he was trying to build up the courage to just put it on. He so wanted to please his mother, but to present as Sinead again after all this time, along with all the painful memories of how the repression had torn him apart, felt impossible. In a way, he hoped would be a compromise, Damien wore a black pantsuit, with a black, ruffled Victorian style blouse that was decidedly more feminine than masculine for the era. It fit tightly around his slim, slightly curvy figure, but it’s style still made him feel like him.

He styled his long hair a little, curling it here and there, and using hairspray to give it a bit more volume. He had considered cutting it now and then, especially after being misgendered by strangers, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. His hair was part of who he was. He put on a little more make-up than usual and left his contacts out. He hoped that the relatives who had not met Damien before wouldn’t see anything new and that his mother would appreciate that he tried.

She didn’t. Not only did she make a big deal of referring to him as “our daughter Sinead” during her eulogy, she misgendered him loudly throughout and refused to speak to him the entire day. A few days later she sent a letter to her child, addressed to “Sinead Reed” in huge bold letters, telling him that he had no respect for his family, that he had let her down and failed Lucien.

Damien was at a loss. He’d tried so hard to build a new life and tried so hard to please everyone. What more could he do?

With no-one else to talk to, he poured his heart out to Mary in a long letter he never expected a reply to. But a short while later he received a letter that changed his entire life.

Mary told him that his mother would never change, that she would always blame him for all her problems and any mistakes Lucien makes. She was blunt and cruel- but offered the perfect solution. Damien should make a new start for himself and his son. There was a rundown old house in her cul-de-sac, just two doors down from her, that had been empty for the past few years. The old lady who had owned it had died there and kids had since decided that it was haunted, hurrying past it and daring each other to go inside. The gardens were overgrown and it was in desperate need of some TLC, but it could be the perfect place for a new start.

Damien considered this. His job was such that he could work anywhere and no matter which school he sent Lucien to, he always seemed to get into trouble. Perhaps if they went across the country he could find somewhere were word of mouth couldn’t reach and somewhere where they would at least have one last friend.

After a short discussion with Lucien, who was all too pleased with the prospect, Damien took the money he had been saving for his chest surgery and used it as a deposit for the old, but their new, house. He called a head-hunter in the area and found himself a temporary work position, along with enrolling Lucien in the local school.

Only after all other bases had been covered, he approached his mother and told her they’re plans to move, that they were starting a new life and that she was welcome to stay in touch, but only if she remembered who her child was. Damien knew what her reaction would be and for one final stand he refused to be manipulated by it. She whined and cried, telling him how selfish he was and that he was taking her only grandchild away from him, as well as her only daughter. She told him that if he left then he would no longer be a member of her family.

Damien simply smiled at her and told her that that was her decision, not his.

So, he went back to the courthouse and changed his surname from “Reed” to “Bloodmarch.” He had thought long and hard about this, but ultimately if he was going to choose his own surname, then why not chose a deliciously goth one! Lucien was completely on board and took his father’s surname, telling his Grandma that she was a bitch and that his Dad was awesome (which she responded by telling Damien that he had turned Lucien against her.)

*

“Dad! That trucks ready!” Lucien called from the other room.

“I’ll be right there, son,” Damien called back. He looked around the small flat once more, now empty and clean, then back at the photograph of himself and his son. “Son…” He whispered, pressing his fingers against Baby Lucien’s face.

He pocketed the picture inside his cloak and walked out the door, ready for his new start.

**Author's Note:**

> Very interested in peoples thoughts, as well as requests for other stories in this universe.


End file.
